My former colleague at the Heritage Foundation, Brian Riedl, has a column in the Wall Street Journal today which discusses the degree to which President Bush’s policies can be blamed for current deficits. I think Brian is too easy on Bush’s terrible record as a big…
Daily Analysis
Obama Is Repeating Roosevelt’s Other Mistakes
Much of the economic debate in Washington revolves around the silly Keynesian notion that politicians can stimulate an economy by borrowing money from the private sector and using the funds to make government bigger. That didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt during…
Jilted Basketball Fans Should Blame the Income Tax, not LeBron James
Supporters of the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially the owner of the team, are upset that basketball superstar LeBron James has decided to sign with the Miami Heat. The anger is especially intense because the Cavaliers offered $4 million more over the next five years….
Obama Is Greedy, not Racist
The Washington Post has a story, excerpted below, about people who think the tanning tax is racist because it targets a service used overwhelmingly by white people. And while some critics make a good point about how that would be the story if there was a tax on a…
Bashing Bush-Obama Statism on CNBC
In a debate with one of the hopeless ideologues from the Center for American Progress, I criticize the corrupt deals between big government and big business, I warn about the big tax increases scheduled to take effect next year, I explain that Republicans did Obama a…
Good Polling Data
I certainly don’t think public policy should be based on polling data, but I always am happy when the American people are on the right side of an issue since it increases the possibility of good outcomes in Washington. Here are some very encouraging results from a…
Public Knows Better than Congress
The statists in Congress are enamored with Keynesian big government policies and profligate spending as a means of “stimulus.” But while they travel the country to tout so-called “stimulus success,” the public displays a far better…
Connecticut Is Terrible, but New York Is Worse
The Wall Street Journal opines about the latest bone-headed move by New York politicians to drive away productive activity. Connecticut is not exactly a low-tax jurisdiction, but sometimes being less worse is all that’s necessary to win a tax competition battle….
The Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of Fiscal Policy
The fault line in American politics is not really between Republicans and Democrats, but rather between taxpayers and the Washington political elite. Here are two examples that symbolize why economic policy is such a mess. First, we have President Bush’s former…
Seeking to Undermine Competition from the Internet, Politicians Pushing Privacy-Destroying State Sales Tax Cartel
One of the good features of the Internet is that it gives people more options. But this is bad news for politicians, who like to control – and tax – what people are doing. But it’s not easy for politicians at the state level to impose high sales taxes on consumers…